


No Shit

by meanoldauthor



Category: Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 04:08:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4125048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanoldauthor/pseuds/meanoldauthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lone Wanderer and Courier trade stories</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Shit

Adal poked at the campfire, then threw the stick in. There was someone rattling around out there, and it was starting to get to her. Were they blind or something? She couldn’t build the thing much higher. She started whistling, never mind she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. _I’m harmless and friendly, now stop makin’ me twitch…_

Aha, there, footsteps getting closer. She leaned back on her log, arms stretched out across it. “Howdy.”

“Hello?” They stayed at the edge of the firelight, trying to be cagey. “Who’s there?”

Adal rolled her head back to look at her. Vault kid, by the accent. “Just a mean old lady and fire, girlie.”

“Oh.” She stepped closer, her smile dazzling. “Is this seat taken, then?”

The courier waved her to sit, and she perched on a rock. She measured her up from the corner of her eye. Nice set of combat armor with a bit of paint on the front, custom SMG on her hip, and a wicked looking rifle on her back. Carried herself like she knew how to use ‘em, too, surprising for someone so young and sweet-looking. The stranger saw her looking and flashed another radiant smile. “You gonna keep staring, or buy me a drink?”

Adal snorted. “Nah, I’m mending my ways. It’s bad for you, kid. Got a name?”

“Dalia.” Smile, simper. “You?”

“Adal.” Three smiles in, and she realized she’d met robots who were less artificial. “Pretty name. Old-World flower, isn’t it?”

“Sure.” The girl tipped her head, and there was a bare patch in the dense curls.

Adal whistled, low. She pointed to the side of her own head. “Nice. Knife fight, or something?”

This time, the smile had an edge. She waved a hand. “Oh, that’s a long story. You really don’t want to hear it.”

“Missy, long stories by a campfire are a hobby of mine. Indulge an old woman,” Adal said, grinning back.

“Well.” Dalia sat up straighter, clasping her hands on her lap. “I got talked into going through a tribal ritual by a ghoul spymaster, and while I was having a hallucinatory dream-quest, a ferryman cut out part of my brain.”

Adal stared at her a moment. Smile, simper. The courier burst out laughing, holding her sides and stamping her feet. Dalia smiled again, lower-wattage and more honest. “Shit—ah, shit kid, you—no way, that’s _too_ crazy, you can’t be making that up.” She wiped at her eyes. “Ah, hell. That’s pretty damn good. The fuck the guy want a bit of your brain for?”

“Racket with the local tribals,” she said. “He brought people downriver to get lobotomized and become part of their tribe, and he got a nice crate of the rad-scrubbing fruits they grew.”

“No shit,” Adal said, chuckling.

“No shit,” Dahlia said, nodding. “I’ve got the bit of it in a jar on my desk.”

“Nice. Alright, brain surgery stories it is. Check this out.” She tilted her head, pointing to the scars starting above her eyebrow and the missing hunk of ear.

“Don’t tell me that was _surgery,_ ” Dalia said. “What did they do it with? A can opener?”

“Heh. Nope, those where from two nine-mils to the head,” she said. Adal turned the other way, parting her hair to show another, thinner one going around her skull. “Got picked up by a bunch of Pre-War scientists who survived as brains in jars. They pulled mine out to make me a mindless servant, it didn’t work, and I spent the next week hunting it down.”

“But you…” Dahlia made a face, wagging a finger. “That is medically impossible. You have to have made that up.”

“I beg to differ, kid, got the scars to prove it,” Adal said, grinning at her irritated look. “I’ll let you go first on the tribal ritual hallucination story, you might beat me there.”

“No. I am a doctor, thank you, when I’m not being a wasteland drifter,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Medically impossible.”

“Well, okay then. I’d like to see you tell the Think Tank they’re unpossible, Doctor Drifter,” Adal settled back again. Dalia was giving her a sidelong, skeptical look. “I can pick up radio stations with the hardware they left up there, too.”

“Really?”

“And you believed _that!_ ” Adal cackled. “You gotta work on your poker face, kid. Come on, hit me. What else have you got?”

“Well, if you _did_ have your brain cut out, it sounds like it was in sterile conditions,” Dahlia said.

“Yeah, I guess,” Adal said, thinking back. “Auto-docs and stuff. Why?”

“This happened in the back of a ferry boat, with rusty tools,” she said. “Then I woke up in the middle of a swamp and had to walk back to… well... let’s pretend there was civilization to go back to. Should’ve seen the infection, before I tracked down some stimpaks.”

“Eugh. S’why it’s so gnarly?” Adal asked. Dalia nodded. “Gross. Got a few like that.” She tapped a finger to her nose. “Alright, how about this. I got to talk with my brain while it was in a tank. D’y know how snotty brains are? I was kind of ashamed, knowing a prick like that was taking up my head. ‘Glands,’ it kept saying. You’re crazy because of your glands.”

“Well… it follows,” Dalia said. “Except there’s some fairly important glands in the brain itself. _Not_ that I believe it happened.”

“That’s what I said!” Adal wagged a finger at her head, scolding. “Had to go look it up in a book first, but I sure as fuck won the argument. I’d still be trapped in the Big Empty, gettin’ chased around by lobotomites and cyberdogs.”

“Wait, you saw actual cyberdogs? Prewar, and still functioning?” Dalia sat up, face eager.

“Sure, Mojave’s lousy with ‘em,” she said. “I had one, sort of on loan for a while. Creeped me out a bit. Needed a new brain swapped in.”

“You…” The girl looked distressed. “You had to find a… donor?”

“Yeah… If we can not talk about it.” Adal rubbed the back of her neck. “But you accept he got a new brain plugged in?”

“It works with cyberdogs because of the extensive robotics,” she said. “Memory backups, neural linkages. Wouldn’t work in a flesh-and-blood human.”

“Well, they took my spine and heart out too, and left plenny’a metal goodies behind. But I ain’t showing you the scars for those on the first date,” Adal said. “Would that do it?”

Silence. The fire crackled. “ _Maybe_. You should have mentioned.”

“I’ll be sure to, next time.” She stretched her arms above her. “Who’s winnin’?”

“I didn’t realize we were competing,” Dalia said, frosty.

“Ah, hell. Don’t take it too hard, kid,” Adal said. “I’m old enough to be your ma, survive to my age and you’ll have plenty of mad stories.”

“Well, there is one more,” she said, clasping her hands again.

“Go on, then,” Adal said.

Dahlia put a finger to her lip. “There was the time I was abducted by aliens and saved the world. With the help of people frozen aboard their ship across the last few centuries.”

Adal opened her mouth to laugh, then closed it again. “You mentioned hallucinations, earlier. I’d get that checked out.”

The stranger made a wry face. “No one believes that one.”

“You _blame_ ‘em?”

“Not really.” Dalia stretched her legs out. “Unless I show them one of the guns I brought back, but we’re a bit far from home for that. Limited ammo,” she said, confidentially.

“I’ll keep it in mind if I meet any aliens,” Adal said, grave.

“Do.” Dalia stopped herself. There were gunshots out in the dark. “Well. That sounds promising.”

“Too right,” Adal said. She stood, picking up the super sledge behind her. “Hell, kid. You’re gonna go sniping in the middle of the night?”

The stranger had her rifle in hand, and grinned. “Dad really got one thing right,” she said. “Dalia isn’t just an Old World flower.”

“What’s it mean, then?” Adal asked, stepping out of the firelight.

She could still see that radiant smile as she slipped away. “Luck.”

Adal shook her head, appreciative. “No shit, kid.”


End file.
